Themes in A Good Man Is Hard to Find

In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, O’Conner uses different themes to show in his story. These are: Good vs. Evil, Religion, Society and Class, Family, and Manipulation. The theme of Good vs, Evil is a standstill between a grandmother who seems to be innocent and good, and a criminal who seems to be all about evil. She seems to be all about goodness, manners at the table, and doing the right thing, while the criminal stands for everything evil.

He wants to do cruel and harmful with no sense of guilt or wrongdoing. Understanding his motivations, and what it means to do “good” show to be the puzzle in this story the confrontation between these two seems to always be about Jesus. The grandmother prays to Jesus hoping that the criminal will spare her life, but the story seems to come to an interesting point when it seems that the criminal takes Jesus more seriously than she does.

The story continues and we see that He has a doubt in Jesus and that there really is no true right or wrong, and no real goal in living life At the Climax we see the grandma gets a divine intervention and could change the ways of her and the criminaL Society and Class seem to fit in when the grandmother shows us how important it is to be “a lady,” and her ideas about what that means show an old-fashioned, Southern way of life She thinks back to the old days when kids were nice, people could be trusted, and there were pretty farms to visit.

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Her morals and mindset seem to be taken for a spin when she meets the criminal The family in this story seems to be one of the most dysfunctional families of all time.

This happens by how they all get on each other’s nervesi Two annoying kids, a dad who tries to take charge of a situation and ends up having it blow up in his face, a wife who always takes care of the baby, and the grandma of course, who is the main character in this story. The story seems to be funny and almost taken to be read as a comedy. But this changes very quickly when the family is killed one by one. The criminal seems to be the one responsible for this. It seems that O’Connor wants us to take the story as one of good, evil, and divine gracer Others who might read this story have found things to be in a mocking sense, We can see it as a selfish woman who uses exploitation to get what she wants, but can‘t seem to save her by what she does. There are many times in the story where the grandmother takes for granted others, including her family members and the criminal does she ever seem to stop, and if she ever does, when is that and why does she do this.

In conclusion this story is an interesting story that is marked by a religious theme and O’Connor’s placement of foreshadowing. The author’s foreshadowing techniques keep us on the edge of our seats wanting to read more, while the contradicting views of the grandmother and the criminal on Christianity add a twisting, religious flair to the story. These two components make up a winding story about a family’s struggle for their lives. The grandmother is not the only one to blame in this story though. While she is the main character, think about the mother who is always caring for the baby, a father who doesn’t seem to really every know what is going on with his on family, and two kids who fight, are annoying, and never get along. When we put all of this together, you get a family like them and every one of these family members could be blamed for any of the situations that happened.

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Themes in A Good Man Is Hard to Find. (2023, Apr 08). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/the-different-themes-in-a-good-man-is-hard-to-find-a-short-story-by-flannery-o-connor/

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